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Dark Days Ahead Discussion @cdda.social JayEchoRay @lemmy.world

Xedra evolved vampire feedback

Apologizes if there is a more general thread, and if there is I can move it there

So my vampire experience is not with the latest experimental version, but I hope that my feedback can be helpful in some ways

I caught the vampirism in the early-middle stage of winter from an sketchy old age retirement village - which I felt a bit miffed at being forced to accept vampirism until I geared up, did some lab raids and grew some garlic for the treatment. Nothing major, just inconvienced and just drew my characters own blood for sustenance until the stages got worse and it forced me to work something new out.

I know it isn't necessary but I felt another source of mercury not in labs would be nice, although I am probably not knowledgable enough to know those places, garlic can be scavanged and/or found so that is alright unless like me didn't anticipated it and had to wait a while to get enough garlic, silver can be found well enough from scavenged jewelery and blood, well I made my own head canon and expand on that later

I know it is easier said than done, but it would be nice if NPC followers that trust you enough would allow you draw blood from them like once a week. It could be a context sensitive dialogue option if they trust you enough and you could draw blood, a survival camp work issue to ask for a blood drive in camp ( which is probably more complicated than it seems) or have an action via fangs to draw blood ala blood thrall.

I got a bit annoyed at the need to feed my blood lust and feed normal food for my character as I tend to be a "Very focused on one thing at a time" type of person and tried to use blood as food but ended up getting parasites, so I resorted to pulping a feral out in the wide and dumping its corpse into a freezer to keep it fresh ( and so it doesnt despawn).

When I needed blood would dump the corpse of the floor, blood draw kit a couple of pints, use the blood infusion magic to get my fill and dump the corpse back in the freezer for next meal.

I understand that it isn't near close to finished as I was looking at the JSON to see if the treatment reduced my vampirism, maybe some more feedback when taking a treatment could help with it - "you feel like an incredible burning sensation as the blood running through your feels like acid, but you feel the blood lust slowly waning" at stage 3 with potentially health or damage applied randomly, "Your blood burns, but you feel the hunger weaken" at stage 2 and at stage 1 "You feel great discomfort as the treatment runs through your veins, but the hunger feels like a faint calling"

I do not wish to sound negative and want to say that the buffs are good and saved me a couple of times and allowed me to fight things that frog mothers in sewers with melee without fear. I guess it feels rough around the edges, I didn't feel like a vampire more like souped-up-blood-crack fiend.

Perhaps my vision of vampirism is romantised with ideas of Dracula and not getting all the cliche' is what is putting me out of place.

Anyway, I enjoyed it while I had it and journey to work for cure was eventful. I hope that it improves and thank you for your hard work

3
3 comments

  • Thanks! So you played on a version before sun fear/damage? Definitely looking into fixing the blood draw kit working on yourself. If NPC follower blood draw is added in it will only be once every 21 days or it will directly contribute to mutiny chances. I'll double check how the treatment messages but I think some of your concerns there have been ameliorated in later versions but also possible they haven't.

    • I think so, I know there was sun weakness and it could "cancelled" by covering your whole body- - probably bad for summer days, but sweat and drinking water was preferable to taking the stat malus. I remember that my character was weaker and had to spend more time indoors during the day until I figured I can limit the sun damage by covering up.

      I think that is fair, an alternative is always welcome especially if an npc has enough trust or fear to comply with a donation and if abused would have a consequence.If an a player has multiple followers would that be 1 blood dontation per follower per 21 days, so hyperthectically if the player has 7 followers and they could safely have a blood donation every 3 days?

      Also thank you for looking into it, I have delved into mutations with a character and I think how it presents the information is clearer in the sense that it says that you have this mutation, you have taken a primer and the damage is like a warning about mutating too much..

      I haven't looked into the latest updates yet as I am on break, but if I had to equivocate the mutation to vampirism

      Vampirism is the mutation, I assume the "post threshold" will be the permanant evolution to a "vampire lord", I then assume that there will be a "primer" acting as the threshold ticker, the blood as a "mutagen", but acts in a unique way where the vampire needs "blood" otherwise it ticks the debuff and eventual death if it gets too low and because vampire abilities need blood that also contributes to the vampire "health" pool of blood "mutagen". And to ascend one needs to use the vampire "primer"( which is a souped up primer) and have another item to act as a mutagenic catalyst. Of course these systems would probably need to be separated from the mutation table to not get weird interactions with the general mutation groups

      I am making a lot of assumptions as I recall the blood is considered a vitamin and thus the whole system seems quite complex to just throw a umbrella coverage of blood "mutagen"

      In closing, I will thank you for considering my opinion and thank you for putting the work into the mod